Unfortunately, our critique of this badly flawed work was rejected by the journal. As editor-in-chief Mark Burgman explained, “the reviewers and handling editor have substantial concerns … the reviewers noted important and consistent concerns, the most significant of which is that the methodological issues raised in the comment were not sufficient to warrant publication.” Not surprisingly, my co-authors and I strongly disagree, and regret that Cheryl Lohr and Christopher Lepczyk were not required to defend their work (a trivial undertaking if, as the reviewers suggest, our concerns were off-base or overblown).

One often hears that science is self-correcting. The present case, however, supports the assertion, made in a 2012 Atlantic article, that self-correcting science is largely a myth.

• • •

In “Desires and Management Preferences of Stakeholders Regarding Feral Cats in the Hawaiian Islands,” authors Cheryl Lohr and Christopher Lepczyk [1] report, based on their analysis of survey results, that “live capture and lethal injection was the most preferred technique and trap-neuter-release was the least preferred technique for managing feral cats” in the Hawaiian islands. As we will demonstrate, however, a variety of flaws with the authors’ survey, sampling, and analysis undermine these claims. The study’s shortcomings, both technical and philosophical, are too numerous to address here; we will focus our attention, therefore, on the factors that contribute most significantly to Lohr and Lepczyk’s results, conclusions, and recommendations. Read more

Over the past year, “Critical Assessment” has gotten a great deal of traction among TNR opponents, despite its glaring omissions, blatant misrepresenta­tions, and obvious bias. “Reassessment”—intended to be a resource for a broad audience, including, wildlife and animal control professionals, policymakers, and the general public—shines a bright spotlight on these shortcomings, thereby bringing the key issues back into focus.

Act Locally
Politics is, as they say, local. This is certainly true of the debate surrounding TNR. Policies endorsing TNR, the feeding of feral cats, etc. typically begin with “Town Hall” meetings, or even meetings of neighborhood associations. “Reassessment” provides interested parties with a rigorous, science-based counter-argument to those using “Critical Assessment” as a weapon against feral cats/TNR.

So, once you’ve had a look for yourself, please share generously! Together, we can—in keeping with the mission of Vox Felina—improve the lives of feral cats through a more informed, conscientious discussion of feral cat issues in general, and TNR in particular.

“The reason that we have a peer review process is to assess the quality and likely validity of scientific data and their interpretation… One goal of the peer review process is to assess an author’s command of the existing literature and whether or not it is being cited selectively to support the author’s views, without critical evaluation of contradictory evidence.” —Michael Hutchins, CEO and Executive Director of The Wildlife Society, May 3rd blog post.

Just a week after my previous post—in which I pointed out some high-profile failures of the peer-review process Hutchins defends—I caught this related interview on NPR’s Fresh Air.

Where was the peer-review process—designed to protect against such practices—in all of this? Once again, it seems, the system failed miserably. According to Carlat:

“…these were in journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, the American Journal of Psychiatry, etc. So essentially all the top journals that doctors read were publishing unbeknownst, I’m sure, to the journal editors—ghostwritten articles written by an advertising firm, essentially pushing the benefits of Zoloft, and they were being paid to do this by Pfizer.”

The fact that a major drug manufacturer would attempt such a thing is—sadly—not entirely surprising. The fact that these articles were actually published in a number of prestigious journals, though—that is a surprise.

And it highlights a key point I’ve made numerous times already: publication in well-regarded journals is a guarantee of neither the work’s validity nor the authors’ integrity.

Still, the most unsettling part of the story is its epilogue. A recent study cited by Carlat indicates that 10–20% of articles in such journals are still being ghostwritten. And, although the incident prompted some new policies concerning disclosure, there seems to be no accountability for the people responsible. “You would think that there would be repercussions,” Carlat told Fresh Air guest host Dave Davies. “However, there have not been any such repercussions.”

Clearly, the “independent peer-review process” Hutchins refers to in his post is the ideal. Its real-world manifestation, however, varies considerably. Too often, it seems, the emphasis is on peers, at the expense of independence and review.

“Unless the author, who is obviously not a trained scientist himself, can publish a strong and verifiable critique of the Longcore et al. paper in the peer-reviewed wildlife biology/ecology literature, all of his arguments must be taken with a gigantic grain of salt.”

In the weeks since Hutchins’ post, I’ve gone to some length to point out some of the more blatant instances of errors, misrepresentations, and bias in the wildlife biology/ecology literature he defends. As this seven-part series, called “The Work Speaks,” (beginning with this post) makes clear, Hutchins’ had better have plenty more salt on hand as he reviews the work of his colleagues.

Let me begin by introducing myself. My name is Peter J. Wolf, and I’m the writer behind the Vox Felina blog. I’d like to address some of the points you made in your May 3rd critique of my work. (In the interest of transparency, this letter will be posted in its entirety on my blog.)

By way of clarification, you referred to me in your post as “the author, who is obviously not a trained scientist himself.” In fact, my training is in mechanical engineering and qualitative research methods. That said, does it require a trained scientist to point out the numerous flaws in the anti-feral cat/TNR literature—to, if I might borrow from the title of your post, out-science the scientists? I don’t think so. Indeed, some of your colleagues—including those you defend—have set an astonishingly low bar. Consider, for example, some of the issues I’ve addressed in my recent posts:

When did it become acceptable to cite work one hasn’t actually read? As I pointed out in “Lost in Translation,” this seems to be surprisingly common. Nico Dauphiné and Robert Cooper, for example, are just the latest to get William George’s classic 1974 study [1] wrong. George never “found that only about half of animals killed by cats were provided to their owners,” [2] as these two authors suggest. This is an error—and an all-too-tempting-shortcut to the doubling of predation rates—that, as Fitzgerald noted 10 years ago, “has been reported widely, though it is unfounded.” [3] (Of course, if Dauphiné and Cooper aren’t reading George’s work—which they cite—I don’t imagine they’d bother with Fitzgerald’s—which they don’t even mention.)

Are scientists no longer expected to recognize and deal appropriately with non-normal data sets, such as the positively skewed distributions that describe prey catches, cat ownership, time spent outdoors by pet cats, and more? As I describe in “Mean Spirited,” this seems to be the exception, not the rule. Using simple averages overestimates the factor in question, and in turn, the impact of free-roaming cats on wildlife. Such errors increase rapidly when one is multiplied by another, as Christopher Lepczyk demonstrated in his PhD work. [4]

While we’re on the subject of statistics, what about appropriate sample sizes? This was the focus of my 27-May post, “Sample-Minded Research.” Among the examples I discussed was Kays and DeWan’s misguided conclusion that the actual “kill rate” of pet cats allowed access to the outdoors is “3.3 times greater than the rate estimated from prey brought home.” [5] This “correction” factor has been used by many [2, 6–8] as another easy multiplier, despite the fact that it’s based on the behavior of just 24 cats—12 that returned prey home, and another 12 that were observed hunting for a total of 181 hours.Even setting aside the size of the samples, their dissimilarities are striking: the cat observed the most (46.5 hours) was only a year old—the youngest of the 12 observed, and therefore likely to be the most active hunter. In addition, larger, more comparable samples would probably have revealed a profile of time spent outdoors more similar to those found in other studies [9] and [10] (thereby reducing the magnitude of Kays and DeWan’s error).

And finally, there’s the issue of how some of these studies are designed. Take Cole Hawkins’ PhD work, for example. Hawkins compares rodent and bird numbers between two areas, and draws conclusions—infers important causal relationships—without (1) taking into account various factors (e.g., the many differences between the two study areas) that likely affected the differences he observed, and (2) any evidence of what “pre-treatment” conditions were like. Although he concludes, “the differences observed in this study were the results of the cat’s predatory behavior,” [11] he offers no explanation for the numerous exceptions—for example, the five (of nine) species of ground-feeding birds that showed no preference for the “no-cat area” over the area with cats. Lepcyzk, too, started off his PhD work on shaky ground, asking owners of cats to recall the number and species of birds killed or injured by their cats over the previous six-month period. Five years earlier, David Barratt demonstrated that such guesswork tends to overestimate predation rates—perhaps by a factor of two or more. [12]

In your post, you write:

“One goal of the peer review process is to assess an author’s command of the existing literature and whether or not it is being cited selectively to support the author’s views, without critical evaluation of contradictory evidence.”

But the essay you defend is plagued by such “selective support.” For example, Longcore et al. trot out figures from the long-discredited (and non-peer-reviewed, by the way) Wisconsin Study. In 1994, co-author Stanley Temple told the press that their estimates “aren’t actual data; that was just our projection to show how bad it might be.” [13] But 16 years later, Longcore et al. seem to be suggesting otherwise—that these figures are actual data. By publishing these deeply flawed estimates, the authors—and, by extension, Conservation Biology—give them undeserved credibility.

And what about the authors’ reference to the 2003 paper by Lepczyk et al. as evidence that “cats can play an important role in fluctuations of bird populations”? [15] One might get that impression from the paper’s abstract. However, the study’s focus was—as Lepczyk et al. note themselves—on cat predation, not bird populations:

“Although our research highlights a number of important findings regarding outdoor cats, there remains many aspects that are in need of further research… conservation biologists lack data on how specific levels of cat predation depress wildlife populations and if there are thresholds at which cat densities become a biologically significant source of mortality.” [4]

Obviously, these are spectacular cases. But if such high-profile work can be published and circulated widely, then how much easier is it for other papers—facing far less scrutiny—to do so as well?

Scientific Publications and the Peer-Review Process
I find your criticism ironic—even hypocritical—in light of the Scientific Societies’ Statement on the Endangered Species Act you co-authored in 2006. There, you acknowledged the value of the peer-review process, but also cautioned that “proposed limitations on the use of non-peer-reviewed technical reports and other studies will weaken, not strengthen, the science employed in endangered species decisions by limiting the data available to scientists and decision-makers.” Can we not make a similar argument for critiques and reviews such as those I’ve carefully composed and compiled via Vox Felina?

It’s curious that neither you nor the editors at Conservation Biology actually dispute any of the claims I’ve made regarding the flaws in “Critical Assessment.” Instead, you call my work “vaguely scientific” and “editorializing,” ultimately dismissing it because of its lowly status as a blog (“clearly not the place that the debate should occur”).

This is quite a departure from the position you took just four years ago. Rather than advocating for rigorous scientific discourse—regardless of a particular work’s origin—you’re now putting publication above all else. Would you suggest, for example, that using means to describe highly skewed populations—because such practice has been published in peer-reviewed journals—is appropriate and acceptable? And, further, that my calling these researchers on the carpet for it—because I’ve done it via a blog—is somehow invalid? Or that the predation rates proposed in the Wisconsin Study have merit?

The same can be said for the numerous issues I’ve covered in the past several weeks (many of which I’ve outlined above): if I’m right, then I’m right; if I’m wrong, then I’m wrong. In the end, it shouldn’t matter whether these critiques are published in a peer-reviewed journal, posted at Vox Felina, or scribbled on the back of a cocktail napkin. What matters is simply whether the points I’ve made are valid or not.

It’s difficult not to see a certain irony in your immediate and wholesale dismissal of my work—based only on the first of a four-part series (and clearly “advertised” as such). You’re quick to criticize, for example, my apparent failure to “address any of the more recent work that Longcore et al. relied on, or that have subsequently been published.” I wonder: did you bother to read any of my subsequent posts, in which I addressed these points at some length? As a trained scientist, wouldn’t you want to see all the “data” before drawing your conclusions? Your post has done far more to highlight the need for Vox Felina than to discredit it.

Don’t get me wrong—I’ve nothing against criticism; indeed, that’s the very premise of Vox Felina. But, before rendering judgment, you owe it to your readers, your colleagues, and yourself to at least have all the relevant information in front of you. This, it seems to me, is a necessary first step not only for scientific discourse, but for any civil discourse.

Los Angeles Court Case
With regard to the injunction against publicly supported TNR in Los Angeles, you’re correct in noting that the case was not about the efficacy of TNR. However, there’s far more science in the administrative record than you suggest. Though the majority of the record is made up of e-mail communications, trapping permits, and the like, it is peppered throughout with various papers, reports, and numerous references to scientific literature.

To take just one example, there’s this excerpt from a letter dated March 27, 2006 by Babak Naficy, the attorney representing the Urban Wildlands Group and the American Bird Conservancy:

“A decision by the Commission to implement the TNR policy will likely result in an increase in the population of feral cats in the City by returning feral cats to the environment that otherwise would be taken into shelters, and by issuing permits to maintain feral cat colonies. Notwithstanding the goal of the project to reduce feral cat numbers, TNR programs are less effective than removal in controlling feral cat populations, [16] and consequently this shift in policy would increase the number of feral cats in the environment. As has been communicated to the Commission by my clients in the past, it is well settled that feral and domestic cats adversely affect the population of songbirds and other small animals, such as small mammals and lizards. [11] Furthermore, the scientific literature shows that TNR is not effective in decreasing the number of feral cats on a regional basis. [17] An intensive TNR program combined with cat adoption at a Florida university took 11 years to reduce a county by two-thirds (6% per year), and even then animals continued to be abandoned and added to the colony.” [18]

“Additionally, City-endorsed feral cat colonies present a severe public health risk, [19] especially to vulnerable human populations such as the homeless. Maternal exposure to toxoplasmosis, often carried by feral cats, increases risk of schizophrenia in humans. [20] Therefore, any decision that mandates return of unowned cats to the environment may increase the number of free-roaming cats in the City and will likely result in a concomitant adverse impact on the environment.”

That said, perhaps I was not clear in my post. I was not implying any direct connection between the Longcore et al. paper and the Los Angeles TNR case (e.g., that the paper itself was part of the administrative record). The point I was trying to make was that the Urban Wildlands Group—lead petitioner in the case—was not a disinterested party concerned with science for its own sake. Longcore et al. were key stakeholders—focused, it seems, more on their “message” (the timing of which was itself uncanny) than the validity of any scientific claims.

And in any event, I don’t see how the case can be so easily divorced from science. This is not about property rights or tax code. Its status as a California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) case presupposes the possibility of “either a direct physical change in the environment or a reasonably foreseeable indirect change in the environment.” The evidence of such changes, of course, would rely on scientific research. As I say, the administrative record contains numerous claims regarding potential impacts and the studies supporting or refuting them. Whether the judge in the case allowed this material to influence his eventual decision is unknown; but it’s clear from court transcripts that he considered it quite relevant:

“Look, you put feral cats in the wild, they endanger wildlife. That is an environmental concern…”

“It doesn’t affect birds? It doesn’t affect other wildlife? A fair argument has been made that it does. A fair argument… a fair argument has been made that when you take them out of the wild—not all of them are taken out of wild—but you take 50,000 cats out of the wild and do not consider other alternatives such as euthanizing them and return them back to the wild, I would be embarrassed to stand there and argue that there is no environmental effect… so you bring them in, you neuter the them and you put them out, and they endanger other wildlife and perhaps health and a lot of other issues that come to bear, and that’s the only consideration made and that’s not a project. Please, spare me.”

“And who is to go out and if the feral cats are running wild, does the Animal Services have a program to round up a herd of cats, if that’s possible—that’s an old expression—and bring them in a neuter them and let these little kitties out to kill birds and other wildlife?”

Whether or not Los Angeles had an official TNR program in place may have been at the center of the case, but it was certainly not the whole case.

Compromise, Courage, and Leadership
As I’ve noted on Vox Felina’s About page, there are legitimate issues to be debated regarding the efficacy, environmental impact, and morality of TNR. But attempts at an honest, productive debate are hampered—if not derailed entirely—by the dubious claims so often put forward by TNR opponents. Exactly the sort of claims I’ve attempted to untangle over the past several weeks.

But from what I’ve read of your work, you don’t seem interested in such a debate, and even less interested in finding common ground:

“Cooperation and compromise, no matter what the cost, is not courageous leadership.” [21]

Perhaps it’s impressive as rhetoric, but your comments strike me as somewhat hypocritical (your attempt to make a virtue of the same ideological inflexibility you dismiss in the animal rights community), misguided, and, in the end, simply unhelpful. More worrisome, however, is your willingness to let your ideology blind you to the numerous errors in the work you so vigorously defend.

Michael, how can you expect so much courage and leadership from your colleagues when you demand so little honesty and integrity?

2. Dauphiné, N. and Cooper, R.J., Impacts of Free-ranging Domestic Cats (Felis catus) on birds in the United States: A review of recent research with conservation and management recommendations, in Fourth International Partners in Flight Conference: Tundra to Tropics. 2009. p. 205–219.

3. Fitzgerald, B.M. and Turner, D.C., Hunting Behaviour of domestic cats and their impact on prey populations, in The Domestic Cat: The biology of its behaviour, D.C. Turner and P.P.G. Bateson, Editors. 2000, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, U.K.; New York. p. 151–175.

18. Levy, J.K., Gale, D.W., and Gale, L.A., “Evaluation of the effect of a long-term trap-neuter-return and adoption program on a free-roaming cat population.”Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. 2003. 222(1): p. 42-46.

“…it may be that conservation biologists and wildlife ecologists believe the issue of feral cats has already been studied enough and that the work speaks for itself, suggesting that no further research is needed.”

In fact, “the work”—taken as a whole—is neither as rigorous nor as conclusive as Lepczyk et al. suggest. And far too much of it is plagued by exaggeration, misrepresentations, errors, and obvious bias. In Part 5 of this series, I critiqued Cole Hawkins’ 1998 PhD dissertation. Here, I’m going to untangle some of Lepczyk’s own PhD work: Landowners and cat predation across rural-to-urban landscapes, published in 2003.

The Study
In this study, surveys were distributed across three southeastern Michigan landscapes (rural, suburban, and urban) corresponding to established breeding bird survey (BBS) routes. [2] Among the survey questions:

“If you or members of your household own cats that are allowed access to the outside, approximately how many dead or injured birds a week do all the cats bring in during the spring and summer months (April through August) (0, 1, 2–3, 4–5, 6–7, 8–9, 10–15, 16–20, more than 20)?”

“Across the three landscapes there were ~800 to ~3100 cats, which kill between ~16,000 and ~47,000 birds during the breeding season, resulting in a minimum of ~1 bird killed/km/day.”

Increasing Uncertainty
How do Lepczyk and his collaborators arrive at these figures? It’s not entirely clear, actually. Despite numerous attempts, I’ve been unable to follow all of their calculations. However, using their data, I developed my own estimate: 1,119 outdoor cats, 511 of which were reported to be successful hunters.

Using this figure, I then summed across all three landscapes the birds killed or injured, plus those killed or injured by non-respondents’ hunting cats (based on the ratio of hunters to outdoor cats owned by respondents, or about 50%). The resulting estimate is 15,856 birds killed over the 22-week breeding season—close to the low estimate suggested by Lepczyk et al., but just a third of their maximum.

So, why the discrepancy?

One reason is that, at least for some of their estimates, Lepczyk et al. assumed that every landowner who didn’t respond to the survey owned outdoor cats. This, despite their survey results, which indicated that only about one-third of landowners fell into this category.

But the authors go further, generating predation estimates based on pure speculation, specifically that “non-respondents have 150% the number of outdoor cats as respondents.” [2] It should be noted that Lepczyk et al. also ran another scenario in which non-respondents had half the outdoor cats as did respondents—but, again, in both cases they assume that every non-respondent owned outdoor cats.

As a result of this approach, the authors end up in some strange territory: the estimated number of cats owned by non-respondents (based on the assumptions described above) far exceeds the number owned by respondents—by more than a two-to-one margin, in some cases. If the greatest impacts are going to be attributable to non-respondents, then what’s the point of doing the survey in the first place? There are accepted methods by which one can manage uncertainty—statistical analysis, confidence intervals, and the like. What Lepczyk et al. have done serves just one purpose: to inflate apparent predation rates.

Skewed Distributions
In addition to the flaws described above, there are some fundamental errors in the way the authors handle their data. Like so many others, Lepczyk et al. ignore the fact that their data is not normally distributed:

Lepczyk et al. use the average number of birds killed/cat to calculate the total number of bids killed for each of the three landscapes. As I discussed previously), this is a highly positively skewed distribution—using a simple average, therefore, greatly overestimates the cats’ impact (by as much as a factor of two).

A similar error is made when the authors use an average to describe the number of outdoor cats owned by each landowner. Again, because this is a skewed distribution, their use of a simple average exaggerates the extent of predation.

The two inflated figures described in (1) and (2) are multiplied together, further inflating estimated predation rates.

Barratt has suggested that “median numbers of prey estimated or observed to be caught per year are approximately half the mean values, and are a better representation of the average predation by house cats based on these data.” [3] Accounting for the first point alone, then, my estimate is reduced to 8,000 birds killed over the 22-week breeding season.

Accounting for the second point is somewhat trickier. For one thing, we don’t know what constitutes an outdoor cat here—the survey simply asked respondents if they owned cats “that are allowed access to the outdoors.” [2] However, we do know the results of a 2003 survey, which indicated that nearly half of the cats with outdoor access were outside for two or fewer hours a day. And 29% were outdoors for less than an hour each day. [4] Although these figures almost certainly reflect owners in urban and suburban landscapes more than those in rural landscapes, it’s clear that a simple yes-or-no question on the subject is insufficient. Indeed, such a question will invariably overestimate the number of “outdoor cats”—which in turn overestimates predation rates.

This, coupled with the error inherent in using a simple average, pushes predation estimates lower. And the third point reduces those estimates further still. Taken together, these corrections could put my estimate closer to 4,000 birds. More important, the upper estimate proposed by Lepczyk et al.—47,000 birds—could easily be 10 times too high.

The Small Print
Despite their inflated figures, Lepczyk et al. suggest—rather absurdly, in light of the substantial flaws described above—that perhaps their estimates are actually too conservative:

“One caveat to our study is that landowners may have underestimated the number of cats they allow access to the outside. Such a result was found in a similar study of landowners in Wisconsin (Coleman and Temple, 1993).” [1] (Note: After reviewing “Rural Residents’ Free-Ranging Domestic Cats: A Survey,” [5] I’ve found no evidence of such a result.)

“… we found that a very common volunteered response among landowners that had no outdoor cats was that either their neighbors owned outdoor cats or that feral cats were present in the vicinity of their land… [suggesting] that at least some landowners under reported or chose not to report the number of outdoor cats they owned.”

But what about their reports of birds brought home killed or injured—how trustworthy were those? After all, the survey (mailed during the first week of October) asked respondents to recall the number of birds their cat(s) brought home April through August. Surely, there was a lot of guesswork involved. In fact, David Barratt found this kind of guesswork to overestimate predation rates. In a study published five years prior to “Landowners and Cat Predation,” Barratt concluded, “predicted rates of predation greater than about ten prey per year generally over-estimated predation observed.” [3]

The two studies cannot be compared directly for a number of reasons, but by way of comparison, the average predation rate used by Lepczyk et al. is approximately 31 birds/cat for the 22-week breeding season. Using Barratt’s work, in which the “heaviest” six continuous months correspond to about 58% of yearly prey totals, [6] I converted this to a yearly rate of 53 birds/cat/year. Barratt has shown that the actual predation rate, at this level, is less than half the rate predicted by cat owners. In other words, predictions of 50 birds/year generally correspond to catches closer to 25 birds/year.

While Lepczyk et al. emphasize the potential for under-estimating predation levels, they never consider the risk of over-estimating these levels—or their most obvious potential source of error: landowners’ recollections of birds killed. The authors question respondents’ reports of outdoor cats, but accept without question their reports of birds injured or killed over the previous six-month period. And, as Barratt indicated, such reports can be inflated by a factor of two or more!

Something else I find troubling comes, of all places, from the Acknowledgements section. Among those thanked “for helpful and constructive reviews” are American Bird Conservancy (ABC) president George Fenwick and Linda Winter, director of ABC’s Cats Indoors! campaign. It’s not clear how Fenwick and Winter contributed to the final paper, but their involvement on any level raises questions about possible bias. Certainly, Winter has credibility issues when it comes to “research” about the impact of free-roaming cats on birds, as I’ve already described (see also pp. 18–24 of TNR Past present and future: A history of the trap-neuter-return movement [7]).

* * *

The same year Lepczyk’s paper was published, the American Veterinary Medicine Association held an Animal Welfare Forum “devoted to the management of abandoned and feral cats.” [8] In attendance were more than 200 veterinarians, animal control officials, wildlife conservationists, and animal advocates—each with a different perspective on feral cats in general and TNR in particular.

In welcoming this diverse group, then-President-Elect Bonnie Beaver recognized the range of contentious issues before them:

“We will not always agree, but we will come away with increased knowledge and a renewed commitment to work for the welfare of all the animals with which we share the earth” [8]

While I tend to share Beaver’s optimism, I think the debate is hurt—if not derailed entirely—by the publication of research aimed not at increasing our collective knowledge, but rather at supporting a particular position. Like Cole Hawkins’ dissertation, “Landowners and Cat Predation” is, at best, an interesting pilot study for subsequent work. And yet, it’s widely—and uncritically—cited in the feral cat/TNR literature. Longcore et al., for example, refer to it as “evidence [indicating] that cats can play an important role in fluctuations of bird populations,” [9] despite the fact that Lepczyk et al. don’t actually address the issue of bird populations at all. More recently, Dauphiné and Cooper use the inflated predation rate suggested by Lepczyk et al. (along with rates proposed by other researchers) to arrive at their “billion birds” figure. [10]

The method employed in “Landowners and Cat Predation”—asking owners of cats to recall the number and species of birds over the previous six-month period—invites overestimation from the very outset. Lepczyk et al. then inflate these numbers through both careless (e.g., using averages to describe skewed data) and deliberate (e.g., assuming all non-respondents owned cats—perhaps 50% more than respondents did) means. Rather than getting us any closer to the truth about cat predation, this study only obscured it further.

Worse, it’s been packaged and sold—and subsequently “bought”—as rigorous science, thereby giving it an undeserved legitimacy. Such efforts are impediments to knowledge and understanding—and therefore, to progress.

10. Dauphiné, N. and Cooper, R.J., Impacts of Free-ranging Domestic Cats (Felis catus) on birds in the United States: A review of recent research with conservation and management recommendations, in Fourth International Partners in Flight Conference: Tundra to Tropics. 2010. p. 205–219.

“…it may be that conservation biologists and wildlife ecologists believe the issue of feral cats has already been studied enough and that the work speaks for itself, suggesting that no further research is needed.”

In fact, “the work”—taken as a whole—is neither as rigorous nor as conclusive as Lepczyk et al. suggest. And far too much of it is plagued by exaggeration, misrepresentations, errors, and obvious bias. In Part 4 of this series, I discussed how feral cat/TNR researchers often misuse averages to characterize skewed distributions, and how that error overestimates the impact of free-roaming cats on wildlife.

For the next few posts, I’m going to critique three of the studies most often cited by these researchers, starting with Cole Hawkins’ 1998 PhD dissertation, Impact of a subsidized exotic predator on native biota: Effect of house cats (Felis catus) on California birds and rodents. I mentioned Hawkins’ dissertation previously, but only briefly. Here, I’ll take a closer look, paying particular attention to how he gets from his results to his rather dubious conclusions.

The Study
Hawkins’ two-year study was conducted in Alameda County, CA, spread across two adjacent parks. He started by designating a “cat area” (where, nearby, free-roaming cats were being fed) and a “no-cat area” (where no cats were being fed), and then designated “rodent grids” (nine locations used for trapping and counting rodents) and walking transects (from which bird surveys were conducted) in each area. Hawkins then compared the number of birds and rodents detected in the two areas.

Among Hawkins’ conclusions:

“The differences observed in this study were the results of the cat’s predatory behavior.” [2] (It should be noted that Hawkins tempered this assertion in his 1999 article summarizing the work: “The differences observed in this study may have been due to the cats’ predatory behavior.” [3] (italics mine))

And this:

“The presence of cats in this study area already has caused a shift in the composition of the rodent community; it is possible that a shift in the larger biotic community could follow.”

And, finally:

“It is not prudent to manage for wildlife and allow cat feeding in the same parks.”

Unfair Comparisons
But Hawkins’ findings are insufficient to supports such claims; indeed, his methodology doesn’t allow for them. Hawkins has no idea what the cat area was like prior to his arrival; he merely assumes the populations of birds and rodents would have been identical to those found at the no-cat area, and makes his comparisons accordingly. In fact, there are a number of factors that indicate that the two areas are not as comparable as Hawkins suggests:

The cat area was almost a peninsula, with a lake on one side and a residential area (within 0.5 km) on the other. The no-cat area, on the other hand, was located largely in the interior of the parks.

Hawkins notes that there were more people in the cat area (of­ten twice as many as were observed at the no-cat area), but dismisses the possibility that their presence may have influenced the numbers of birds and rodents he observed there.

The habitat along the 2.2 km transects from which bird counts were conducted varied considerably between the two areas. Compared to the no-cat area, the cat area had 31% less chaparral, 183% more trees, 52% less grass, and 240% more “modified” habitat (it’s not clear what Hawkins means by “modified,” but I assume it refers to habitat that reflects significant human impact).

Finally, the presence of pesticides may have played a role. According to a 2002 report (the earliest I was able to find) from the East Bay Regional Park District, “The focus of Lake Chabot’s weed control efforts are vegetation reduction within the two-acre overflow parking lot, picnic sites and firebreaks around park buildings, corp. yard, service yard, and the Lake Chabot classroom.” [4] And it’s clear from Hawkins’ 1999 article that the cat area did include picnic sites: “…over half of the cat scat in this study was collected under and around picnic tables.” [3] Now, Hawkins’ fieldwork was done in 1995 and 1996, but if there was any pesticide use during the study period, it may have affected the results—especially if the pesti­cide was distributed differently across the two areas.

Cats and Birds
“Almost twice as many birds were seen on the no-cat transect as on the cat transect,” writes Hawkins. But it’s not quite as simple as that—the details reveal a rather complex, often uneven count over the course of the study. Nevertheless—and despite the differences between the two areas—Hawkins’ only explanation is the cats. This is especially true for ground-feeders:

The preference of ground feeding birds for the no-cat treatment was striking; for ex­ample, California quail were seen almost daily in the no-cat area, whereas they were never seen in the cat area.

What’s more striking to me is the fact that five of the nine ground-feeding species included in the study showed no preference for either area. But Hawkins scarcely acknowledges the point, and doesn’t even hint at an explanation. “Birds that were known to nest on or near the ground or in shrubs and vines ≤ 1.5 m in height” also showed no preference between the two areas (though no nest counts were conducted).

The picture painted by Hawkins is that bird species absent from the cat area represent species killed off by the cats. But it’s generally accepted that cats are opportunistic hunters, catching whatever prey is readily available and easily caught. [5–8] Fitzgerald and Turner, for ex­ample, argue that “domestic cats (both house and feral ones) are best described as generalist resident preda­tors, exploiting a wide range of prey, and able to switch readily from one prey to another.” [9] So, how is it that some species were present at the cat site while others were not? Again, Hawkins offers no explanation.

In fact, it’s clear from Hawkins’ study that the cats aren’t much of threat at all to the birds—even vulnerable ground-feeding and ground-nesting species—in the cat area. Of the 120 scat samples found by searching the cat area, “65% were found to contain rodent hair and 4% feathers.” [2] This finding comes toward the end of the study, when the cat population was at its greatest—and still, only 4% contained feathers. And this could easily represent one cat and one bird.

One final point about the birds: Hawkins suggests (without explanation) that the olive-sided flycatcher, American robin, and Stellar’s jay—all of which showed no preference for either the no-cat area or the cat area—may have been responding to a “specialized habitat.” Could it be that the birds not seen in the cat area were also responding to a specialized habitat—by “migrating” to a place with less human activity (e.g., the no-cat area), for example? Once again, Hawkins has no comment.

Cats and Rodents
The fact that scats indicated rodents were predated to a greater extent than birds is hardly surprising [5, 6, 9, 10], but it should be noted the 65% figure represents the frequency of occurrence, and not a predation rate (a topic I address in greater detail here).

Hawkins’ analysis didn’t reveal whether the rodent hair was that of deer mice, harvest mice (both of which were found less often in the cat area than in the no-cat area), house mice (found more often in the cat area), or California voles (which showed no preference for either area). In any case, it’s not clear that the cats were responsible for the presence or absence of any of these rodent species. Again, the selective dietary habits suggested by Hawkins simply don’t fit with the domestic cat’s profile as a “generalist resident predator.”

Two additional points that might explain the differences Hawkins observed concern the habitat of the cat area. First, there’s the nearby lake and residences—potential sources of pollution that could affect nearby plant and animal life. Secondly, there’s the issue of possible pesticide use mentioned previously. As I say, it’s largely conjecture on my part; at the same time, though, it’s easy to imagine its potential impact on small mammals (and ground-feeding birds, for that matter).

Finally, Hawkins suggests that certain bird species were responding to specialized habitat—perhaps the rodents were simply doing the same.

Cats
Hawkins used track plates (baited devices that detect the presence of mammals by way of preserved “footprints”) for “estimating a relative cat presence index,” but found only one cat track in 200 track plate nights. And, “in 560 days of exposure, no scat was found in any of the sand boxes.” [2] Now, the cats were seen at feeding stations and on the rodent grids of the cat area—as many as 26 during a one-week period toward the end of the study. But clearly, they were not where Hawkins was expecting them to be. If, after two years at the study site, Hawkins was unable to get a better handle on the presence of the cats, how can he be so sure of their behavior when it comes to predation?

If, as Hawkins argues, the differences observed between the two areas are a result of the cats’ predatory behavior, then one would expect the number of birds and rodents to decrease as the number of cats increases. Yet, Hawkins’ findings don’t bear this out.

And then there are the unanswered questions about the cats—for example:

Where did these cats come from—were they illegally dumped, the result of nearby residents’ unsterilized cats breeding? Did they belong to the residents?

Were the cats sterilized? (Their increasing numbers would suggest that they weren’t.)

Were these cats part of a managed TNR colony? (Local newspaper reports indicate a long-standing battle between TNR advocates and opponents. [11–13])

Considering the central role these cats played in Hawkins’ two-year study, he knew surprisingly little about their behavior—including various factors that surely had an impact on his findings.

* * *

In their recent comment, Lepczyk et al. suggest that conservation biologists and wildlife ecologists “look to the evolutionary biology community” [1] for an example of how to influence policy. For feral cat/TNR opponents interested in shaping policy, it seems Hawkins’ study has become quite popular. [14–17] Actually, Nico Dauphiné and Robert J. Cooper take its already-tenuous claims one step further, citing Hawkins’ work (actually a 2004 conference paper that summarizes his dissertation [18]) as evidence that “the continuous predation pressure exerted by exotic predators in exponentially high densities can and has resulted in numerous local extinctions of continental land birds.” [8]

But is Hawkins’ methodology one that evolutionary biologists would advocate—or even recognize? Not likely.

Hawkins draws conclusions—infers important causal relationships—without any evidence of what “pre-treatment” conditions were like. And ignores entirely his own findings when they contradict his conclusions. Rather than beginning his inquiry with questions to answer, it seems Hawkins had his answer from the outset. At best, his work is an interesting pilot study—generating research questions for a more rigorous, less biased investigation.

6. Fitzgerald, B.M., Diet of domestic cats and their impact on prey populations, in The Domestic cat: The biology of its behaviour, D.C. Turner and P.P.G. Bateson, Editors. 1988, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge; New York. p. 123–147.

8. Dauphiné, N. and Cooper, R.J., Impacts of Free-ranging Domestic Cats (Felis catus) on birds in the United States: A review of recent research with conservation and management recommendations, in Fourth International Partners in Flight Conference: Tundra to Tropics. 2010. p. 205–219.

9. Fitzgerald, B.M. and Turner, D.C., Hunting Behaviour of domestic cats and their impact on prey populations, in The Domestic Cat: The biology of its behaviour, D.C. Turner and P.P.G. Bateson, Editors. 2000, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, U.K.; New York. p. 151–175.

18. Hawkins, C.C., Grant, W.E., and Longnecker, M.T. Effect of house cats, being fed in parks, on California birds and rodents. in Proceedings Of The 4th International Symposium On Urban Wildlife Conservation. 2004. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona. http://cals.arizona.edu/pubs/adjunct/snr0704/snr07042l.pdf

“…it may be that conservation biologists and wildlife ecologists believe the issue of feral cats has already been studied enough and that the work speaks for itself, suggesting that no further research is needed.”

In fact, “the work”—taken as a whole—is neither as rigorous nor as conclusive as Lepczyk et al. suggest. And far too much of it is plagued by exaggeration, misrepresentations, errors, and obvious bias. In my previous post, I presented examples of researchers “reinterpreting” the work of others to better fit their own arguments. For the next few posts, I’ll focus on some of the major flaws in the feral cat/TNR research itself—beginning with the reliance, by some, on small sample sizes.

Size Does Matter
There are all kinds of reasons for small sample sizes, perhaps the most common being limited resources (e.g., time, funding, etc.). And they are often a fact of life in real-world research, where investigators have less control over conditions than they might in a laboratory environment. Studies employing small sample sizes are not without value; indeed, they often serve as useful pilot studies for future, more comprehensive, work. They do become problematic, though, when broad conclusions are drawn from their results. Below are three (among many!) examples of such studies.

Impressive Estimates
In “Free-Ranging Domestic Cat Predation on Native Vertebrates in Rural and Urban Virginia,” [2] published in 1992, the authors estimated that the state’s 1,048,704 cats were killing between 3,146,112 and 26,217,600 songbirds each year. “This number,” they note, “is certainly inaccurate to some degree, although the estimates are impressive.” [2] Impressive? I suppose. Maybe incredible is more fitting—since the study from which they were derived included exactly five cats, four “urban” and one “rural.”

Mitchell and Beck acknowledged “the limitations of extrapolation to large areas from relatively small data sets such as ours,” suggesting that their work was intended to provoke future “careful and detailed studies that can reveal truer estimates of the impact of this introduced species.” Hawkins [3] and Dauphiné and Cooper [4], however, seem to take them at their word, regardless of any disclaimers.

Many Cats, Multiple Seasons
In a recent study on Catalina Island, the researchers “examined the home-range behavior and movements of sterilized and intact radiocollared feral cats living in the interior” [5] of the island. Although Guttilla and Stapp concede that “sample sizes, especially for males, were relatively low” despite having “tracked many cats across multiple seasons,” they nevertheless come to some rather dramatic conclusions. Among them: “sterilization likely would not reduce the impact of feral cats on native prey.” [5]

So what do the authors mean by many and multiple? Actually, there were just 27 cats in the study (of an estimated 614–732 on the island). “Four cats were tracked during all four seasons, 9 cats were tracked for three consecutive seasons, 4 cats were tracked for 2 consecutive seasons, and the remaining cats were tracked for 1 season.” [5] And these numbers were effectively cut in half, because the researchers were comparing sterilized and non-sterilized cats. At best, this is a pilot study—though it’s already morphed into something more substantial in the mainstream media.

Myth vs. Math
In their 2004 study, “Ecological Impact of Inside/Outside House Cats Around a Suburban Nature Preserve,” Kays and DeWan observed hunting cats, concluding that their kill rate (13%) is “3.3 times greater than the rate estimated from prey brought home.” [6] Not surprisingly, this figure has been used as an instant multiplier (much in the same way William George’s work has been misused) for researchers interested in “correcting” (inflating?) prey numbers. [4, 7-11]

But this ratio, 3.3, hinges on the hunting behaviors of just 24 cats—12 that returned prey home, and another 12 (11 pets and 1 feral) that were observed hunting for a total of 181 hours (anywhere from 4.8–46.5 hours per cat). It’s interesting to note that the cat observed the most (46.5 hours) was only a year old—the youngest of the 12 observed, and likely the most active hunter. This factor alone could have had a significant influence on the outcome of the study.

Also, as several studies have shown [7,8,12,13], the distribution of prey catches tends to be highly skewed (many cats catch few/no prey, while a few catch a lot). In other words, the distribution is not the familiar bell curve at all—making it inappropriate to use a simple average for calculating estimations (a topic I’ll address in detail later). What’s more, with only 12 cats being monitored, how can we be sure their behaviors accurately represent any real distribution at all?

But the key to their calculation is the average time spent outdoors. This, too, tends to be a highly skewed distribution [14, 15], although—curiously—Kays and DeWan’s data suggest otherwise. By way of example, a 2003 survey conducted by Clancy, Moore, and Bertone [15] revealed that nearly half of the cats with outdoor access were outside for two or fewer hours a day. And 29% were outdoors for less than an hour each day. A survey conducted by the American Bird Conservancy revealed similar behavior, reporting that “35% keep their cats indoors all of the time” and “31% keep them indoors mostly with some outside access.” [14]

Kays and DeWan’s average of 8.35 hours/day, then, seems rather out of line with other studies. This, in addition to a number of unknowns (e.g., influence of time of day/night on hunting success, actual time spent hunting by each cat, etc.) raises serious questions about their conclusions.

By way of comparison, using an average of 2.5 hours/day (which is not out of line with the surveys described above) would yield a ratio of 1:1. In other words, no difference between predation rates predicted by actual hunting observation and those predicted by way of prey returned home. Which is not to say that I agree with Kays and DeWan’s underlying methods—we don’t know the possible effects of seasonal variation, for example, or differences in habitat. I’m only pointing out how sensitive this one factor—with its enormous consequences—is to the amount of time cats actually spend outdoors (and, just to introduce one more complication: I’d be very surprised if the amount of outdoor time cats spend hunting is normally distributed; it, too, is probably skewed).

Ironically, while the authors express disappointment that “biologists have rarely sampled both cat and prey populations in such a way that direct effects on prey populations can be shown,” [6] they seem to have had no misgivings about how their work—suffering from its own sampling issues—might be used to misrepresent those same effects.

* * *

Next, I’ll discuss the difference between compensatory and additive predation, and how that affects predictions of feral cat impacts on wildlife.

4. Dauphiné, N. and Cooper, R.J., Impacts of Free-ranging Domestic Cats (Felis catus) on birds in the United States: A review of recent research with conservation and management recommendations, in Fourth International Partners in Flight Conference: Tundra to Tropics. 2010. p. 205–219

Three months after my letter to Conservation Biology was rejected, it’s become apparent what they were really looking for: applause, not criticism.

Of course it probably doesn’t help that I’m not a member of the club; I don’t even know the secret handshake. (Michael Hutchins, writing for the Wildlife Society Blog, “Making Tracks,” has accused me—an outsider—of trying to “out-science the scientists.”)

The reasons behind this lack of opposition are unclear, but it may be that conservation biologists and wildlife ecologists believe the issue of feral cats has already been studied enough and that the work speaks for itself, suggesting that no further research is needed. Or, they simply do not want to devote time and energy to the issue and are unaware of policy actions.

I’d like to offer an alternative explanation. Yes, the work speaks for itself, but there are plenty of observers—surely, there are conservation biologists and wildlife ecologists among them—who don’t particularly like what it’s saying.

For the next few posts, then, I’m going to present a sampling of the more serious flaws—including exaggerated and misleading claims, botched analyses, questionable research and review methods, and widespread bias—all too common in the feral cat/TNR literature. Let’s see what Lepczyk at al. are cheering about…

As I’ve suggested previously, much of the “evidence” that Longcore et al. cite regarding cat predation is rather weak. The links between predation and declining wildlife populations (especially birds) are, not surprisingly, no better. According to Longcore et al., “Comparative field studies and population measurements illustrate the adverse effects of feral and free roaming cats on birds and other wildlife.” Let’s take a closer look at some of these studies…

In a comparative study in Alameda County, California, a site with a colony of feral cats had significantly fewer resident birds, fewer migrant birds, and fewer breeding birds than a control site without cats (Hawkins 1998). Ground-foraging species, notably California Quail (Calipepla californica) and California Thrashers (Toxostoma redivivum), were present at the control site but never observed at the site with cats. Native rodent density was drastically reduced at the site with cats, whereas exotic house mice (Mus musculus) were more common (Hawkins 1998). —Longcore et al.

Hawkins’ dissertation [2] is so problematic—and cited frequently enough as “evidence” of the impact of cats on wildlife—that it warrants a post of its own. Here, I’ll touch on just a few issues.

Hawkins describes the “cat” and “no-cat” sites as being similar enough that a valid A-B comparison is appropriate. But a closer look at the study suggests otherwise. Much of the cat site bordered the park’s lake and marina, not far from a number of picnic sites. Hawkins notes that there were more people in the cat area, but doesn’t even admit to the possibility that their presence may have influenced the numbers of birds and rodents he observed there.

In addition, the presence of pesticides may have played a role. According to a 2002 report (the earliest I was able to find) from the East Bay Regional Park District, “The focus of Lake Chabot’s weed control efforts are vegetation reduction within the two-acre overflow parking lot, picnic sites and firebreaks around park buildings, corp. yard, service yard, and the Lake Chabot classroom.” [3] Now, Hawkins’ fieldwork was done in 1995 and 1996, but if there was any pesticide use going on during the study period, it may have affected the results—especially if the pesticide was distributed differently across the two sites.

Hawkins writes, “The preference of ground feeding birds for the no-cat treatment was striking; for example, California quail were seen almost daily in the no-cat area, whereas they were never seen in the cat area.” What’s more striking to me, though, is the fact that five of the nine ground-feeding species included in the study showed no preference for the cat or no-cat area—a point Hawkins downplays, and Longcore et al. ignore entirely.

Finally, it’s not clear how this study constitutes an experiment at all. Hawkins chose two sites, one where cats were being fed, and another (approximately two miles away) where cats were not being fed. We have no idea what the cat area was actually like prior to the cats being fed there—Hawkins merely assumes the populations of birds and rodents would have been identical to those found at the no-cat site. We also have no idea what effect the feeding had—what if the cats were present but had to fend for themselves? And we don’t know if the cats were sterilized, or what impact that might have had on the study. In other words, Hawkins doesn’t actually know enough about what’s going on at the two sites to conclude, as he does, that “it is not prudent to manage for wildlife and allow cat feeding in the same parks.”

In Bristol, United Kingdom Baker et al. (2005) calculated that the predation rates by cats on 3 bird species in an urban area is high relative to annual productivity, which led the authors to suggest that the area under study may be a habitat sink. —Longcore et al.

Also, Longcore et al. fail to mention that Baker et al. concede an important point: “collectively, despite [cats] occurring at very high densities, the summed effects on prey populations appeared unlikely to affect population size for the majority of prey species.”

In addition, a subsequent study (also conducted in Bristol) involving two of the authors, suggests that much of the predation observed was compensatory rather than additive. That is, many of these birds would have, for one reason or another, died anyhow, whether the cats were present or not. Specifically, the authors found that “birds killed by cats in this study had significantly lower fat and pectoral muscle mass scores than those killed by collisions.” [6] Baker at al. are cautious about these findings, suggesting, “the distinction between compensatory and additive mortality does… become increasingly redundant as the number of birds killed in a given area increases: where large numbers of prey are killed, predators would probably be killing a combination of individuals with poor and good long-term survival chances.” But once again, their estimates of birds killed by cats are inflated by a factor of 3.3, as described above—thereby raising doubts about any level of “redundancy.”

Another study to investigate compensatory vs. additive predation was more conclusive. Møller and Erritzøe compared the average spleen mass of birds killed by cats to that of birds killed in collisions with windows found that, “small passerine birds falling prey to cats had spleens that were significantly smaller than those of conspecifics that died for other reasons,” concluding that the birds killed by cats “often have a poor health status.” [7] In other words, the birds killed by cats were among the population least likely to survive anyhow.

Clearly, this is a complex—not to mention contentious—issue. But Longcore et al. make it out to be remarkably straightforward. The “adverse effects of feral and free roaming cats on birds and other wildlife,” they seem to suggest, are widely accepted common knowledge.

* * *

Then, too, there are those—and there are many—who have disputed the broad-brush claims about the impact of cat predation on wildlife. Consider, for example, the following studies:

Biologist C.J. Mead, reviewing the deaths of “ringed” (banded) birds reported by the public, suggests that cats may be responsible for 6.2–31.3% of bird deaths. “Overall,” writes Mead, “it is clear that cat predation is a significant cause of death for most of the species examined.” But the relationship between bird deaths and population declines is complex. In fact, Mead concludes that “there is no clear evidence of cats threatening to harm the overall population level of any particular species… Indeed, cats have been kept as pets for many years and hundreds of generations of birds breeding in suburban and rural areas have had to contend with their predatory intentions.” [8]

Mike Fitzgerald and Dennis Turner come to essentially the same conclusion. (Their contribution to The Domestic Cat: The Biology of its Behaviour is a must-read for anybody interested in the subject.) “We consider that we do not have enough information yet to attempt to estimate on average how many birds a cat kills each year,” write Fitzgerald and Turner. “And there are few, if any studies apart from island ones that actually demonstrate that cats have reduced bird populations.” [9]

Martin, Twigg, and Robinson conclude more broadly, “it is not possible to make any inferences concerning the real impact of feral cats on prey populations from dietary studies.” [10]

Given the scope of their essay, perhaps it’s understandable that Longcore et al. were unable to cover each aspect of this rather broad topic in a comprehensive manner. Nevertheless, the amount of research into cat predation and declining bird populations—a critical piece of the puzzle, to be sure—that was omitted, glossed over, and/or misrepresented suggests a clear agenda. Read carefully, their essay comes across as not as scientific discourse, but as fodder for a marketing campaign. (And, given the number of wildlife conservation/bird advocacy groups that have posted it on their websites—not to mention the L.A. Superior court decision—it’s been effective.)

* * *

Many proponents of TNR will acknowledge that the practice is not appropriate for all environments. Crooks and Soulé’s work in San Diego’s canyon country (cited previously), writes Ellen Perry Berkeley, “suggests to even the most ardent TNR advocate that such a landscape might not be the best place for TNR… The world is a complicated place.” [11] Gary J. Patronek, the former Director of the Center for Animals and Public Policy at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, and one of the founders of the Hoarding of Animals Research Consortium, goes further: “the release of cats into an environment where they would impact endangered or threatened species, or even into wildlife preserves or refuges, is inexcusable.” [12]

This, I worry, is a slippery slope. Given the current nature of the cat debate, how long would it be before every alley, Dumpster, and abandoned property is deemed a wildlife preserve? And, given the number of endangered and threatened species—and their wide range—would there be any environment left for cats? Nevertheless, Patronek’s larger point is an important one:

I do not believe that this is being advocated by cat protectors who see urban, managed colonies as an imperfect but still preferable alternative to the euthanasia of healthy animals. Abandoned pet cats whose own habitat has been reduced to colonies, and the wild species endangered by clear-cutting or beachfront development, are casualties of the same callous disregard for the lives of animals. I see little justification for shifting the role of cats to that of scapegoat.

For Longcore and the Urban Wildlands Group (and others, too, of course), though, there’s simply no place for TNR anywhere. But there’s something even more troubling with their argument: they’re asking the wrong questions. As Patronek puts it so eloquently:

If the real objection to managed colonies is that it is unethical to put cats in a situation where they could potentially kill any wild creature, then the ethical issue should be debated on its own merits without burdening the discussion with highly speculative numerical estimates for either wildlife mortality or cat predation. Whittling down guesses or extrapolations from limited observations by a factor of 10 or even 100 does not make these estimates any more credible, and the fact that they are the best available data is not sufficient to justify their use when the consequence may be extermination for cats… What I find inconsistent in an otherwise scientific debate about biodiversity is how indictment of cats has been pursued almost in spite of the evidence, and without regard to the differential effects of cats in carefully selected, managed colonies, versus that of free-roaming pets, owned farm cats, or truly feral animals. Assessment of well-being for any is an imprecise and contentious process at best. Additional research is clearly needed concerning the welfare of these cats.

In a future post, I’ll get into the ways Longcore et al. would have us measure the success of TNR.

“Feral cats are documented predators of native wildlife,” said Travis Longcore, science director for the Urban Wildlands Group. “We do not support release of this non-native predator into our open spaces and neighborhoods, where they kill birds and other wildlife.”

Hardly the stuff of controversy, at least at first glance. Who can argue with the fact that cats kills birds and other wildlife? That’s what predators—including cats and a number of other species, too, of course—do. Nobody’s debating that. What impact this predation has on birds and wildlife is another matter altogether—one Longcore doesn’t address here. (I’ll be addressing this issue repeatedly in future posts, starting with a critique of Longcore’s essay in Conservation Biology).

What’s more interesting is Longcore’s reference to cats as “non-native” and wildlife as “native.” It’s a recurring theme in the feral cat debate: native is inherently good; non-native is inherently bad (even worse is invasive non-native, another term often used to demonize cats). Never mind the fact that the cats are here because we brought them here, or the hypocrisy of the native/non-native argument. We routinely protect non-native species from native predators—consider, for example, the current controversy over livestock and wolves. Again, a topic to delve into more deeply in the future.

“It’s ugly; it’s gotten very vicious,” said Travis Longcore of the Urban Wildlands Group, one of the organizations that sued the city on behalf of the birds. “It’s not like we’ve got a vendetta here. This is a real environmental issue, a real public health issue.”

No vendetta? Maybe not, but Longcore’s essay in Conservation Biology has an agenda that takes priority over the science (hardly surprising in retrospect—given the timing of its publication, it must have been written while Longcore was preparing for the L.A. case). His apparent concern for the environment and public health strike me as largely disingenuous.

Also from the Times:

Those cats, Longcore said, often are diseased. And when colonies are fed, the practice often attracts more cats, either from around the neighborhood or because people dump new cats.

Let’s set aside for the moment Longcore’s assertion about colonies attracting cats, feral or dumped (I’ll get to that in another post). What about his suggestion that “these cats are often diseased”? In his own paper, Longcore acknowledges a rate of only 5–12% overall for feline leukemia virus (FeLV) and/or feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV). In the largest of the studies he cites, more than 12,000 cats were tested for FeLV and FIV, revealing an overall rate of infection of 5.2%, which, noted the researchers, “is similar to results previously reported for feral cats and for pet cats.” [1]

It’s difficult to see how these rates of infection would lead anybody to suggest that free-roaming cats are “often diseased.” And I don’t expect to get any clarification from Longcore. While he seems eager to talk to mainstream media, which accepts his claims at face value (and passes them along as accurate to the public), he has yet to respond to my e-mail inquires.

I realize that taking issue with Longcore’s comments will no doubt strike some people as nitpicking. But such statements—which put PR before science—only impede any honest discussion of the issues.

Longcore et al. were very “careful” about the studies they selected, and even the particular claims within the studies cited (this despite the fact that they criticize TNR advocates for their “reference to selected peer reviewed studies”). The authors make no attempt to explain their rationale for this obvious cherry picking.

Although I was, as Meffe suggests, “critiquing the overall literature in the area and pointing out its complexities, problems, and uncertainties,” it was only to put the original essay into context. Meffe’s comment ignores the larger issue: Longcore et al. were essentially breathing new life into flawed studies by citing them uncritically. And here, Conservation Biology is also implicated (which might help explain Meffe’s decision to reject my commentary), a point I made to Meffe:

Conservation Biology is, according to the journal’s website, “the most influential and frequently cited journal in its field.” I’m afraid that by publishing the essay submitted by Longcore et al., Conservation Biology has effectively given its “stamp of approval,” thereby burying more deeply the complexities of the subject and its body of literature. No wonder bird advocacy groups have embraced the paper, including PDFs on their websites—here, it would seem, is additional “proof” of the damage cats are doing to bird populations!

In the end, Meffe didn’t budge. And neither did current editor Erica Fleishman, who seemed to have little patience for the subject. What Meffe found to be too broad, Fleishman read as a “fairly personal critique,” adding, “…we aim for objective presentation of facts that may provide evidence contrary to a previous publication rather than (what comes across as) a more pointed rejoinder to authors and the journal.”

At this point, it seemed clear that I was getting nowhere. Nevertheless, I appealed, explaining what I intended to include in my paper:

… regarding “a more comprehensive piece,” what I’m proposing is a detailed review of the literature regarding cat predation on birds, the scope of which includes—but also goes well beyond—the material covered in the essay by Longcore et al.

Once again, my appeal fell on deaf ears, eliciting this response—obviously intended to put an end to the discussion—from Fleishman:

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I think it would be best to pursue publication of your review in a different journal. Good luck and again thank you for considering Conservation Biology.

Perhaps I will follow her advice and submit a similar proposal to another journal. For now, though, it’s all going right here. Indeed, many of the next several posts will draw on the main points I made in my first letter to Conservation Biology.

Since I first became involved with the Great Kitty Rescue, I’d begun slowly compiling journal articles and news stories related to feral cat management, and in particular, TNR. As a newcomer to the world of cat rescue, I was struggling to sift through the many claims made—on both sides of this highly controversial issue—regarding its efficacy and potential impact.

When I came across the essay “Critical Assessment of Claims Regarding Management of Feral Cats by Trap-Neuter-Return” (Conservation Biology, Volume 23, No. 4, 887–894). I thought I’d struck gold. Here, I naively assumed, was what I’d been looking for, all neatly complied in a single document (complete with an extensive list of references, allowing me to chase down all of the original research as well). As it turned out, the discovery of this essay proved to be a turning point—but not in the way that I expected. Instead of answering my questions, this paper (the details of which will be the focus of many future posts) raised many more. This “critical assessment,” authored by Travis Longcore, Catherine Rich, and Lauren M. Sullivan—with its glaring omissions, numerous misrepresentations, and obvious bias—revealed for me the ugly side of the feral cat/TNR debate.

So I did what any writer in my position would do: I wrote a letter to the editor.

I was then invited by outgoing editor Gary Meffe (who had been at the helm when the original essay was published) to submit a letter for possible publication in the journal. The letter, suggested Meffe, was “to be substantive and shed more light than heat. In other words, if it is simply a difference of opinion it will not be suitable. I always look for letters to be substantive critiques of a paper.”

Which, I maintain, is precisely what I delivered. Meffe, however, disagreed, and—to his credit—explained in detail his reasoning:

I am not saying it is unimportant to conservation, but it is a fairly narrow and specialized topic. Publication of the Longcore et al. paper was nibbling at the margins to begin with, but I and the reviewers felt that it had enough relevance and interest for us to publish it. I am reluctant to further engage the topic in the journal in great detail, so any responses to it need to be very focused and address specific errors in the paper. Your critique gets into assessment of the broader literature on the subject and its use by Longcore et al. I don’t think this is the format to do that. You are really critiquing the overall literature in the area and pointing out its complexities, problems, and uncertainties; one could do that for almost any topic in conservation and probably for many papers that are published. If this cat TNR literature really is problematic then it calls for a much more comprehensive critical assessment in a thorough review paper. Thus, if you would like to prepare a comprehensive review paper on cat TNR that thoroughly examines the literature and its complexities and problems, then perhaps that could be of interest to this journal.

Not the response I was hoping for, obviously—but I’d already invested too much to give up so easily. Perhaps my next letter would be more successful…